Chinese astronauts return to Earth after manual docking mission

China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft and its three-member crew has returned to Earth, following a successful mission to manually
dock with the orbiting space lab Tiangong-1.

China is currently building its own space station, to rival the
ISS. The Tiangong-1 module was launched in September 2011, and it was joined by the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft soon after. On 16 June
2012, Shenzhou-9 launched with Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and China's
first female astronaut, Liu Yang, on board.

The craft automatically docked with Tiangong-1 on 18 June. That
was followed by a manual docking (a difficult manoeuvre that sees two vessels
link up while moving at thousands of kilometres an hour), which is
a safety procedure should the automated dock system
malfunction.

During the 13-day mission, the trio of taikonauts carried out
medical and scientific experiments in space. That includes studies
of live butterflies, butterfly eggs and pupae.

Shenzhou-9 parachuted to a ground landing on the grasslands of
Inner Mongolia at 02:00 GMT on 30 June. Despite the bumpy landing,
the crew members emerged smiling. "Tiangong 1, our home in space,
was comfortable and pleasant. We're very proud of our nation," Liu
Yang told national broadcaster CCTV, according to The Associated Press.

China will now continue to build its space station, which will
be ready for long-term stays in space by 2020, but will be
significantly smaller than the internationally-owned ISS.
The next milestone, the Shenzhou-10 mission, is planned to take
place in 2013.